a blog by Jennifer Tatroe

Wake Up Call

There are four days left until the start of the RMFW Colorado Gold conference. Four. Days. In between frantically polishing my manuscript, worrying about my hair (PRIORITIES), and watching the mailbox for my shipment of business cards, I’ll be spending the time I have left trying to perfect my pitch for those precious ten minutes when I get to sit down with a literary agent and talk about my novel.

This is hard. I’ve spent so long intentionally not divulging much about my book that it’s difficult to get into the habit of talking about it. When asked what I’m writing, I usually just say, “It’s an urban fantasy novel” or, if I’m in a talkative mood, “It’s an urban fantasy novel about the daughter of Sleeping Beauty.” It seemed like delving too deeply into the details might jinx the writing of it.

Starting four days from now, that time is over. When someone asks me what my book is about, I need an answer. A real answer. So here it is. This is my novel, Wake Up Call.

Penelope Wakefield thinks she knows everything there is to know about the Folk, the fairy-tale creatures who live unseen amongst us. Aside from helping out an old school pal with the occasional relocation job, she’s content to ignore them in favor of her bike, her iPhone, and her job at a Denver record shop.

Avoidance works pretty well until Pen’s father, one of the last human mages, dies, and Pen travels to the mysterious mountain town of her birth for the funeral. Before the casseroles are even finished, Pen’s mother, a legendary sleeping beauty, disappears into the forest. When Pen teams up with a surly klabauterman, two of the three Gruff brothers, and her father’s hunky apprentice to find her, it quickly becomes apparent that more than just one life is at stake. Family secrets start to fly, and Pen learns that her life is more entangled with the stuff of fairy tales than she could have imagined. Revelations about Pen’s parents and about Pen, herself, threaten three hundred years of peace amongst the Folk.

It’s up to Penelope to get her mother back, return the Folk world to equilibrium, and (this is the hardest part) learn to survive in a town with no cell service.